


Time and Space

by Go_Fic_Yourself



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Concerned Friends, Divorce, F/M, Grieving, M/M, Not Age of Ultron Compliant, takes place not long after Avengers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-03
Updated: 2015-05-03
Packaged: 2018-03-28 21:27:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3870358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Go_Fic_Yourself/pseuds/Go_Fic_Yourself
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set just after the Avengers. Clint's marriage falls apart.<br/>Nothing to do with Age of Ultron.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Time and Space

Over the years Clint Barton had become an expert on silence. The silence of waiting for the right time to strike, for the perfect shot. The silence of hiding, willing your breath to slow and heavy footfalls to pass you by. And this...the particular silence before someone walks out of his life, saying things like, "it's not you, it's me." and meaning, "I can't do this anymore. You're too much."

"So it's over then?" He asks, knowing it's what he should say. He's always been good at being what people need him to be, for a while at least. 

"You know it is, Clint. I think we've both known it for a while." She plays her role as well. 

He nods, accepting and maybe even agreeing with her words. "I'm sorry, Bobbi. Sorry I couldn't be better for you." The situation feels distant and strange, they are actors playing themselves in a movie.

She flinches away from his self deprecation and the hand that had come up to gently touch her arm. "It's not all on you. Two to tango and all that."

"Never was much of a dancer." 

That earns him the flash of a smile, filled with humor and nostalgia. That, more than her words even, tells him it's over. It is suddenly very real.

He picks up a pen from the desk and signs the papers on the table, carefully shoving them back into the manilla envelope and passing them to her. "You're a free woman."

"I was always that." She replies, starts to leave and then pauses. "You were the only one tied down." There is more that she wants to say, but they've been talking for months now and she's tired. "Good luck, Clint. Goodbye." 

"Bye," he replies, giving a short wave and she starts walking again. 

You'd think the divorce would be the ugly part. But the ugly part is what comes next.

Weeks of Katie coming over and taking Lucky for walks, dutifully knocking on his bedroom door when she arrives and before she leaves. Sometimes she pleads for him to come out, other times she yells.

Tony comes over when he has time, which is rare, but he makes up for that with the intensity of his desire to fix things. Fix Clint. But other, better people have tried before and failed.

Steve stops by more often, always asking if there's anything he can do to help. 

Sometimes they come together and Clint tells them he needs time. Time and space. 

Banner gets that and doesn't come, though he sends messages with the others, kind words and strange teas. He still feels too much the bull in a china shop. The team hopes that once the reconstruction of the city is over and with it the palpable reminders of what the Hulk has done, Bruce may be able to leave the tower without sinking into himself (Clint hoped that would bring them all some peace).

Natasha is there when she can be away from SHIELD. She comes straight to his apartment after a mission, enters through the window and crawls into bed with him. They sleep like they fight, back to back and hyper aware of each other. Clint sleeps more soundly on those nights, though they are few and far between. Natasha waits until he pretends to fall asleep, plausible deniability on both their parts, and speaks in hushed Russian. She says she told him that this would happen. She tells him that love is not real. That emotional entanglements are just complications. 

She's not wrong.

The thing about his relationship with Bobbi was that he knew it was never going to work. But like every other boneheaded idea he'd ever had, he went and did it anyway. 

"Emotions are weapons." Natasha told him, ages ago, when he'd mistaken infatuation for love (not for the last time). "Make sure you have the right one for the job and make sure you point them in the right direction." 

Clint's emotions tended more towards the double edged sword variety. 

Falling in love with someone when you're already in love with someone else? Dumbass move. Marrying that person when you were still in love with the original person? Dick move.

It would have fallen apart anyway. Was falling before Loki and the alien invasion and Phil. That and Clint's endless void of guilt and grief and Bobbi was done. He couldn't fault her for that.


End file.
